I was talking to author Saladin Ahmed on Twitter about the Save the Pearls mess, and the fact that all of the attention being paid to this racist book, particularly with the Weird Tales disaster, has undoubtedly led to additional sales of the book.

I’m skeptical as to how many extra sales the book has gotten — while there are a ton of Amazon reviews, the sales rank is nowhere near as good as I’d expected, based on the controversy. But that rank has still jumped up in recent days, so she’s getting some sales, if only from people curious to see what all of the fuss is about.

I don’t believe this is a reason to not talk about the book, or to not publicly and loudly challenge racism in the genre. I might not appreciate that my blog post yesterday could have given this author a few more sales, but I prefer that potential side effect to silence.

That said, it totally sucks that a hugely problematic book is rewarded with so much attention while other, far better books by and about people of color are overlooked or ignored.

Therefore, I’d like to open the comments to recommendations of better books to read.

Can I just say what a thoroughly good idea this is? This is a thoroughly good idea!

1. Redwood and Wildfire by Andrea Hairston – just won the Tiptree Award (and well deserved!). Takes place in the early 20th century, and follows the lives of a young black actress/hoodoo practitioner, and her friend, an Irish-Seminole man trying to remake his life.

2. Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson (although any of Hopkinson’s novels could be on this list – her work is stunning).

3. The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun by N.K. Jemisin: the only problem with Jemisin publishing both of these novels in 2012 is that I don’t know which one I’ll be nominating for the Hugo. CURSES!

Also, a shoutout to young adult novels (some of these are speculative fiction, some are not) with POC protagonists. There are not nearly enough of these, and they don’t get NEARLY the attention they deserve.

1. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher. Crutcher is white, but his protagonist, T.J. Jones, is mixed race (and identifies as African American). This is a fantastic novel about racism (as opposed to say, a novel about “black people have taken over the world, OH NOES”). I mean, that’s not ALL it’s about (it’s also about good and evil and swimming), but racism – and T.J.’s encounters with it – are a big part of the novel’s focus. (not spec fic)

2. Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves. Hanna is mixed race AND she has a mental illness – not something I see a lot in YA. Not something I see portrayed particularly WELL in YA (or anywhere else, for that matter) but Reeves does it splendidly. Hanna goes off to find her long-lost mother, and ends up in a small town in Texas where things are so bizarre, they might as well put up a sign saying “Here, there be monsters.”

3. Girl Overboard by Justina Chen Headley. Syrah, the protagonist, is Chinese-American and re-evaluating her life while recovering from a serious snowboarding accident. WONDERFUL novel. (not speculative fiction)

4. Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier. Few things make me sadder in life than the fact that Hidier seems to have decided to stop writing. I regularly quote lines from this novel; it’s simply glorious. The protagonist, Dimple Lala, is Indian-American. (not speculative fiction)

5. The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Just read this one. It’s stunning. (not speculative fiction)

I’d also recommend Durham’s Acacia trilogy and his Hannibal novel Pride of Carthage. Plus Nalo Hopkinson’s debut novel Brown Girl in the Ring and, a classic already, Samuel R. Delany’s Tales of Neveryon. Also, it is high time that somebody translate Liliana Bodoc’s Saga de los confines into English. It’s a high fantasy trilogy whose plot revolves around the efforts of resistance against a secondary world equivalent of the Conquista. Anyone who is interested in post-colonial SFF and reads Spanish should definitely check it out.

LiariAug 21, 2012 @ 12:32:03

Chronicles of Elantra by Michelle Sagara. Amazing series, full of great characters and complex plot. Or, for YA, Silence by Michelle Sagara. Really, she’s just an incredible author.

(as far as I know the first and only)African American lesbian vampire!

Adding to the “everything and anything by Nalo Hopkinson”

FigAug 22, 2012 @ 01:10:24

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor.

I also just started reading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, and it is immensely powerful.

Joris MAug 23, 2012 @ 05:01:12

Haruki Murakami,

For some reason the rest of the names that come to mind (and I have not seen mentioned yet) are as far as I am aware white men, but they seem worth mentioning anyway, but with caveats for levels of appropriation that might be too much.

Neil Gaiman – Anansi Boys
Barry Hughart – The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox
Walter Jon Williams – Metropolis (I have no idea if the protagonist is a POC, but an ethnic cultural minority position is important and done well in my opinion)
Steven Erikson – Malazan Books of the Fallen series

QuinallaAug 23, 2012 @ 12:00:40

Definitely anything by Octavia Butler, she is so great! If you are looking for a good vampire book, Fledgling is her take on it.

Thanks for starting this list! I think it is a great positive response to the Save the Pearls nonsense and I always love getting book recommendations.

David BreslinAug 23, 2012 @ 12:21:15

-The graphic novel “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luen Yang is rather brilliant- it involves cultural assimilation and the Monkey King.
-The “Earthsea” books are worth a mention for quietly setting up a world where the hero is dark-skinned and this fact is completely unremarkable.
-Talking of Ursula le Guin,”The Birthday of the World” is a good intro to her “Ekumen” SF universe- full of inside and outside views of a huge variety of fictional races and cultures.
-“Leaving Atlanta” by Tayari Jones. Not SF/F (in fact, partly autobiographical), it’s a deeply involving story about growing up in an African-American neighborhood haunted by a serial killer.